Rusty Lake

We are Rusty Lake:

Creators of the praised Cube Escape series and the premium point-and-click adventures Rusty Lake Hotel and award-winning Rusty Lake: Roots.

Dear visitor,

Welcome to Rusty Lake, a surreal place where anything can happen. We offer you the most mysterious game series you'll ever play.

Why not try out our praised Cube Escape series first? Let the cubes guide you the eerie and atmospheric point-and-click adventures with an "escape room" feeling. Currently we have ten Cube Escape games taking place in the Rusty Lake universe. Cube Escape: Paradox is our latest installment which is combined with a short film! Download them for ten on iOS, Android or play on Desktop.

Next to our Cube Escape series we created three premium adventure games with unique story lines taking place in Rusty Lake as well. Serve deadly dinners to five animal-headed guests in Rusty Lake Hotel, expand the bloodline of the Vanderbooms in our award-winning adventure Rusty Lake: Roots or stop the ten plagues on a small island in Rusty Lake Paradise.

On the right, you can find a list of all our games sorted by release date.

On our game portal you can play our free games but also find other adventure, room escape and puzzle games. We selected games with a fascinating story, ambiance or unique game-play made by more forward-looking developers.

Check out our blog, social media or newsletter for new updates and content.

We wish you a pleasant stay in Rusty Lake!

Read more about the studio
  • AwardIndie Prize, Best Narrative Award ‘16
  • AwardTop 10 Google Play Indie Games Contest ‘17
  • AwardPremiere Paradox - A Rusty Lake Film @ LIFF '18
  • Award"Most Inventive" App nomination Google Play Awards ‘18
  • AwardFinalist Google Play Indie Games Contest ‘20

Rusty Lake: Roots Launch update 2/2

Rusty Lake: Roots Launch update 2/2

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Yes we made it!! We managed to launch Rusty Lake: Roots on 4 platforms within 24 hours and that’s quite a milestone for the two of us. Although it was one of the most stressful days of this year, we feel so lucky with so many enthusiastic fans waiting and supporting us. It brings us to the edge, working through day and night to get this done and trying to fix everything to bring you the best version possible.

Now we can bring you a full list of platforms were you can buy a trip to this undiscovered part in the Rusty Lake universe:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1142016085
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.RustyLake.RustyLakeRoots
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/532110
itch.io: https://rustylake.itch.io/rusty-lake-roots
Available for $ 2,99 / € 2,99!

We still got things to do as mentioned in the previous post (fixing translations and glitches) but let’s be positive now 🙂 After six months of work we just can’t wait to read your experiences and see how Rusty Lake: Roots will do in overall! Today we saw the first Twitcher playing (actually I’m watching now, thanks MKtheWorst!), hopefully we get some press attention and Youtube let’s plays too!

In this part we want to give a big thank you word to all you guys supporting us these last couple of months! First of all to Johan Scherft, his incredible pastel painting of our world brings another level to the game, we can’t wait to sell the posters. To all the translators and beta testers (friends) who helped us the last couple of weeks. A special thanks to Victor Butzelaar, we can’t imagine a Rusty Lake game without his Music. Behind the scenes we got so much help from Bob Rafferty who made all the walkthrough, trailers and you probably heard his awesome voice(s) already in the game. We also want to mention Ruben Aldenhoven, he is responsible for all the content on rustylake.com, and because of his work a lot of people can enjoy games on our portal… and fun to mention he was the first beta tester of Roots!

For everyone who already finished.. wow amazing job! We will start working on a new Cube Escape next week, so there is light again! Next week we will also write a background story on the development Rusty Lake: Roots, so you can see the whole process of the game.

Ok! It’s bed time now 🙂

Ps. Any review/rating for the game will help and don’t forget Rusty Lake Hotel is on Sale 🙂
Ps2. We have updated the iOS, Android and Desktop versions of Rusty Lake: Roots with some fixes for The Clock and The War Hero. Remember you can now reset just 1 level too in settings. Feel free to update your rating

64 responses to “Rusty Lake: Roots Launch update 2/2”

  1. Alex says:

    I cannot begin to put in to words how disappointed I am. I was a HUGE fan of every cube escape game, as well as Rusty Lake: Hotel.
    This game was a TREMENDOUS backpedal. It lacked cohesion. I felt like I was playing a bunch of individual levels that were barely related. I got sucked in by the stories and weirdness of other games; cube escapes and hotel had kept me totally engaged. This one was 33 levels of “puzzles” that took between 2 and 5 minutes to solve, of which, most were incredibly obvious and required practically no insight or inductive reasoning. This felt like a cop-out. I’d -much- rather see one giant “level” with a grand story, as opposed to 33 levels of individual puzzles that play no factor in anything else. Cube Escape: Seasons was AMAZING due to the backtracking and recycling of levels. I thought this would surely have that feel….In the end, I’m not upset that I paid money–I’m truly happy to support brilliant minds spending gratuitous amounts of time for their fans. I’m just largely disappointed. With that “map,” I expected to be able to pseudo-navigate between the Church, Hotel, Bridge, Mill, etc. Instead, we got tiny levels with a few items and a middle-school puzzle. You’re better than that, as reflected in the “Cube-Escape” games. I hope you all drastically reconsider your game plan for future games. Also, the game was absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t expect anything less, visually. I hope I’m not the only one that felt this way.

  2. Harvey says:

    Hi Alex, sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy the game. I think you have missed a lot of details if you think the levels are barely related. The whole tree is one big cohesion. It is different then Cube Escape and we’re proud that we can make something different too. I guess you need to wait to the next Cube Escape, if you’re expecting a Cube Escape game. We can understand we can’t make everyone happy, but glad to see a lot fans do like it!

  3. Max says:

    I downloaded the game on steam and I’m really excited to play it, but when I open it up it’s just a blank screen with a tiny tree logo. Nothing happens when I try to click the tree.

  4. Scott says:

    I think Roots came out very well, it was very pretty, the puzzles were very clever. There were a few that I got stuck on, mainly the cricket/grasshopper one, and the scale puzzle. And as typing this, still having trouble figuring out how to find the secret thing in Rose’s portrait. It’s the last one need to find, and I don’t even have any ideas what to do to find it. But still, I really liked Roots, and I have a friend that I just told them about it and i’m sure they’ll like it too (they’ve already played the other games).
    Very curious how much more of Rusty Lake and Cube Escape there will be until the story is finished.

  5. Sang Woo says:

    Hi!! I’m Sang Woo from Korea
    I’m superly super big fan of Rusty lake series
    You guys made a great job!
    I was really looking forward to this
    By the way, I have a question,
    why we should available this version for $3.25 only at IOS
    Unlike Android?

  6. Luis says:

    Hi guys I just want to thank you for this awesome job, it’s great to see that effort you put into this and the results are amazing as expected.i hope you get paid enough for your job. Personally this is the second time I pay for a game (the first one was hotel) I really hope that you keep working on this, you have a lot of fans waiting for next cube escape game. You have my support I recommend a lot your games and I don’t mind to spend money because the effort is showed. Again i want to thank you and I hope you can excuse my English, I’m still learning and your games also help me a little bit. Greetings from Mexico

  7. John Bread says:

    I have a question…
    Where can I buy it on android with paysafe card?
    I dont have credit card. Of course i can buy for PC, but i want it on my phone 😀

  8. JoJordan says:

    I play your games with my wife and for us every one is an amazing esperience. We also like “Roots” and its family-tree intriguing story. Puzzles are smart. Graphic has improved. Atmosphere is awersome as usual. Nice work! Looking forward for your next game. 🙂

  9. Eben says:

    Wonderful! Beautiful and great sound track. I love all your work and can’t wait for more and more! Thank you for allowing me into your twisted minds for yet another game. I LOVE IT

  10. Harvey says:

    @Sang Woo maybe because of the taxes, on iOS Apple decides the price if we choose 2,99
    @John Bred, maybe you can buy a Google gift card?
    @All, Thanks!!

  11. Jenn says:

    Oh, please, could make a demo for this game and for Rusty Hotel? :´(

  12. D says:

    Played it on the release date when I was supposed to do other things but no regret… It was totally worth the money and time..! 🙂 Great job with all the stories, puzzles, images and everything! Those who played all your games might find it a bit easy as we are familiar with the style. Nevertheless it did not stop me from having great fun with this at all because all the pieces are tied to the one big storyline of the family. Plus the bonuses were great addition too. So, many thanks, and there’s just one thing I wish to see fixed some day: I can’t reopen the small chapters after finishing the entire game and it would be better if I can revisit the scenes without having to reset!

  13. Maik says:

    Already finished…i love it…thanks a lot!!!?

  14. Maik says:

    In the level with the flowers Emma will have a Flower with a roman 6…should be a roman 4! Sorry, think my englisch is not the best…?

  15. Alex says:

    I guess I should have been more clear that I would have rather been able to navigate from room to room, or outside, and travel the map, etc. Being plopped in a small room where everything is just an arm’s reach away made it feel way too easy. Someone else mentioned, though, that most of us are quite familiar with Rusty Lake’s style…so perhaps that’s source of the issue. I just would have liked to see more complex puzzles that carried room-to-room, or have to backtrack–that’s all. I do laud your effort, and understand that you can’t please 100% of the crowd. Most importantly, though, I’ll still be supporting of you guys and hope you continue to make games for years to come!

  16. Eve says:

    Is there a bug in checkmate on iOS? I can’t move the checker.

  17. shier says:

    Congrats for releasing the game!! Finally! Very good graphic! I am amazed!! BTW, I played it yesterday night and ran into a problem….is it just me? I cannot past the third stage where I need to match the cabinet buttons (?) with the bloody hand prints on window grid…..I watched the walk through and pretty sure I did the right thing……I will try again tonight….Congrats again! Always love your concepts!

    PS: the device is Ipad pro, maybe I should do it on iphone?

  18. linda says:

    Just finished the game, I love it!! The story is awesome, so is the graphic and the music. It’s so much better than the Rusty Lake Hotel. I can see a significant improvement in Roots. Thankyou guys for such a amazing game.

  19. myguy says:

    Quite an interesting game! Also the idea of William’s room is good. Can’t image that I could make black & white cubes and… Rusty Lake Cocktail XD

  20. Marissa says:

    You’ve come a long way since Cube Escape: The Lake! This game was amazing – I can’t wait for the next one!

  21. Cécile says:

    HI guys, I wanted to congrats you about this new game who is very nice, the story, the visual and the music. Perhaps the level was a little to easy, except for some ones (like the final one, i spend a lot of time on it!) but the ambiance (i hope it’s the good word) was very good, sometime it makes me kind of sad! Finally, this game was awsome, like the rest of your games. Thanks you for this experience, ,now can’t wait for the next one (and also the poster!). Good job!

  22. Victor says:

    This game is made by gods,you deserves a lot of awards for this game.Congratulations for all the work and i hope you have a lot of luck.
    Pd:rusty lake ?,3 and finished ?

  23. Peggy says:

    This is Peggy from Hong Kong.
    Really want to say thank you for creating this awesome game. Good job!!
    I enjoy playing the roots very much~ the pictures, the sound, the music…
    Those are great!! ?

    (When I was waiting the release of “the roots”, I downloaded and played rusty lake theatre and hotel AGAIN?, the games are still interesting)

    Can’t wait to read the story and the next game!
    Thanks so much?

  24. David says:

    I bought it on steam. This is a game with an incredible atmosphere!
    Good job! You’re awsome!!!

    • David says:

      Awsomefull xD

      I just finished all the secrets in this day, I will share it because you have to be more famous !
      Thanks a lot for this game OMG!
      Sorry for the mistakes I’m French :p
      Cheers team rusty lake!!!

  25. Roman says:

    I like the game, but I think it has lost a part of “Cube escape”.
    Though I really stuck on some puzzles, and atmosphere of mystics and fear still here, small puzzles don’t let you much choice, so they are easy to solve. Maybe, I was expected format of Cube Escape: Mill with several locations.
    Story is great, and crossed with previous games as well.
    I had been confused a little about detective Dale Vandermeer, I thought he was a part of the family, but in the game it is other family starting with “Vander”. It is really confusing.
    Interesting, is William Vanderboom is Mr. Owl or not?

    Also, there is an issue in iOS with russian localization (no numbers, text is cutted), I had to turn it off and play with english. But this isn’t problem for me.

  26. Roman says:

    Oh, I found out he is not.

  27. Julez says:

    Wow!
    Once again just…wow! 🙂

    I began the game expecting it to be like rusty lake hotel (easier puzzles than the CE-series and awesome little details refering to the “main plot”) but this game was a LOT better that hotel has been.

    Sure, most of the puzzles were rather easy but we need to keep in mind that you guys created tons of riddles by now! It isn’t getting easier not to use the same one twice 😉

    What I really love about the game? Well one thing certainly is the fact that the game continues after the last level. Also the puzzles that come afterwards appear to be harder (at least for me) because you have to figure out which clue refers to which puzzle!

    The other thing I love is that you don’t have references to the CE-games as obvious as in hotel (besides the last roots-scene with mr crow which is still fantastic though). Instead they are so small and “by the way”-like that hardcore fans like myself notice them and yet others are not getting them punched into their faces (the dress, the deer-skull, the egg, the shell and so much more) ;P
    I just enjoy little details that are almost like insider references.

    So all together rusty lake roots is:

    Worth all the time you might spend on it as a player
    Worth every single penny and a lot more
    Worth to be replayed thousands of times – like every of the RL-games
    Worth all the time YOU spent on it, my dear rusty lake crew!!

    Thanks for another wonderful game!
    Best wishes
    Julez

  28. crinohomura says:

    Umm…Here are some suggestions on translation form China.
    Translators need to work with full information.They need to know how the sentence organized to fit the grammer rules as well as the context,and what these words atucally refering to(a single word may have a lot of means.For example , “mortar” can be mistranslated to “迫击炮”(infaniry support artillery)instead of“研体”(a tool is uesd to smash something into powder or make it pasty) in Chinese,which is often the case in games made by Artifix).So we recommand that translators need to play the game first or know the full context.
    As to condfidentiality,I think you can sign a confidentiality agreement with translators or let them do their job after the game released(like what Game Kitchen did on the last door series)

  29. crinohomura says:

    Still the game is awesome!

  30. lal says:

    hi dear
    i found that there is an error in level 17:the clock.
    if I drag the gears of the clock to outside of clock frame, they are disappeared and never return!
    I can’t do anyting because of this error…
    please fix it…
    (sorry for my poor english writing skill…)

  31. Pat says:

    Was really enjoying this until I got to The Clock. I put the gears in incorrectly at first, and when I swiped them out of their positions (outside of the clock), they completely disappeared. I have one gear, and the rest are nowhere to be found. I can’t finish this level. Is there a way to reset the level without resetting the whole game?

  32. Whatis says:

    Hey! Congrats on the new game! I bought it on iOS as fast as I can! Loved playing ALL your games!
    Some honest opinion:
    – Art: Always awesome.
    – Music: Great for the most part, but randomly, there’d be jazz going on when the atmosphere is definitely not jazzy.
    – Story: Pretty awesome. I thought at some point the branches would loop me back to previous levels to find other objects. Or maybe I missed something – I have yet to finish the last level… more on that later.
    – Escape Meter: In general, I was a bit disappointed with its difficulty and atmosphere. Everything was all just a little bit too obvious. In previous games, I always definitely have to cheat… multiple times. But this time… I didn’t really have to go looking for hints. This might also has to do with the fact that the clickable area is quite limited. In previous games, there are at least 4 walls to click around, and I think the game really shined when we would click from one wall to the next, and BAM! Something is there to scare us, or some new thing is there.
    – Last level: The weights + combination lock. So I looked at the walkthrough ’cause I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the code is. And it still doesn’t make sense – and I don’t want to continue with the game until the answer makes sense to me. So PLEASE explain it to me. The youtube comments regarding this puzzle seem to suggest that “6” is the magic number to subtract the weights’ # from. But why “6”? Where is this number coming from? How are we suppose to know that? Is this one of those super obvious things that I’m overlooking? PLEASE tell me. It seems like there are others who are equally confused!

  33. Vermilion says:

    Absolutely amazing piece of videogame art.
    I really like the timeline progress and the free choice of levels in this one.
    That makes the discovery of the family history a really unique experience.
    Found a little bug by the way. One of the gear-wheels disappeared during the Samuel clock puzzle, forcing me to start the stage anew.

  34. Vermilion says:

    @Whatis
    Heavy puzzle spoiler ahead
    I found that one quite easy to be honest. Of all these stands, three had the same number. The other ones where paired or even just a single.
    So if you found the three objects that match the same weight, you can evaluate the standard weight these sockets must have, with the help of the already defined object, which is 6.
    There is no direct glue which height these stands must have. But 6 is logically the only possible solution, since it’s the only one where the three objects can have the same height. The rest can be simply put on their right places by try and error.

  35. brian says:

    Big fan of the Cube Escape series. Yet this was a disappointment. Overall, the levels are way (way) too easy, the clues often in plain sight, the puzzles aren’t dimensional, and there is just a lack of “things” in the levels. Bring back the cube.

  36. clanger9 says:

    @Whatis the clue is in two of the portraits. They have numbers – that’s what you need to know.

    Has anyone found the game doesn’t always save progress? I returned to the Elixir bonus level today and found that it had ‘forgotten’ that I had collected all the gold. Didn’t take too long to re-do those levels, but perhaps a bug somewhere?

    PS: I’m sure I had to re-do some parts of the tree as well…

  37. Mieswood says:

    @Vermilion
    @clanger9

    *SPOILER AHEAD*
    I STARTED with the portrait numbers… put hair at 3, tongue at 1 (but here I think I messed up, since the “number” on the scales is more like the letter ‘I’), per portrait clues. Then, since there are a pair of eyes, I put the eyes at 5 (because there are two #5 stands) I thought that means that I should place the balances in ascending/descending order. But then I was left with one extra that didn’t go anywhere… which is when I cheated w/ the walkthrough.

    So is the “1” + tongue + “J” portrait a decoy? It didn’t serve any purpose?

    And even with your explanations, I’m not really getting it.

    I must be the dumbest person in the world… What exactly is the “already defined object, which is 6”? I only see 1 thru 5.

    Please help me see the light!

  38. Vermilion says:

    @Mieswood
    *Spoilers*
    As I said, start with the three identical stands. After these are in balance, you’ve got the exact height to allign all other stands -the one with the missing object.
    This is part 1 of the riddle, no numbers needed.
    In the second Part you need the numbers for the cabinet.
    You know by now that every Object has the weight x+the stand it’s resting on. So just add the known object + it’s stand and you get the number 6.
    Now you just have to substract the weight of each stand from the numer 6 and you get the weight of the objects, and so the number of the cabinet.

    This is my favorite puzzle in this game, by the way.

  39. Mieswood says:

    @Vermilion
    oh my god… so the “3” on the portrait is not referring to the Stand #, but the Weight of Hair.

    THANK YOU! OH MY GOD! I can move on with the game and life.

  40. Mieswood says:

    @Vermilion
    OMG, it’s finally all clicking. This is amazing. The game needs more of these! I’m smiling from ear to ear now!

  41. Vermilion says:

    @Mieswood
    You’re welcome. Yeah, the best riddles are those that need actual work to get the solution.

  42. clanger9 says:

    Small bug!

    Elixir is spelled incorrectly as “Elixer” when it’s added to the inventory in the final bonus game. I thought you might want to know 😉

  43. Danial says:

    I think I found some contradiction!!
    Frank shave in 1920 winter but in 1926 fall (when he revenge)he isn’t shaved, Is it bug?

  44. Joanne says:

    found a glitch i think.. in “The Search” after you find the ink and stampt the letter and put it in the tube, Harvey is supposed to appear on the railings… but he doesnt? Ive tried re-setting that level but he still is showing up?
    help!

    Other than that… fantastic game, well worth the wait

  45. Sbilibeck says:

    First of all, great game! I have encountered a glitch however that is hindering me from playing on. “The Brood” chapter won’t let me continue – I solved the egg and sperm puzzle and it gave me the ‘you solved it’ music/chime over and over and turned into the baby but then the baby disappeared and now shows just the egg in its place with no way to solve it and move on. Jar of semen no longer in inventory. I have shut down my iPad and restarted it but the glitch remains. Help! Thanks!

  46. Tree says:

    I downloaded this game through steam, and I cleared 12 stages however, all my save data just disappeared after steam updates! Can you check it plz?

  47. Vladimir says:

    Found a bug:
    At the level called “Swing” you can give teddy-bear to empty swing while Frank already is not there. That action cause his clone reappear on swing.

  48. Danial says:

    Is the woman at the season is the daughter of Rose??

  49. 5d-c says:

    Three questions about Roots, all concerning time.

    1. In 1870, James saw six animals in Rusty Lake Hotel through telescope, but the story of Rust Lake Hotel took place in 1893;

    2. Emma comitted suicide on 1896, but later appeared in the Wedding Photo chapter in 1900;

    3. In 1920, Frank had cut his hair and beard, but when he killed Albert at 1926, he was still long-haired and long-bearded.

  50. PunkerGreen says:

    Just finished Roots! Well worth the money. Some of the puzzles were easier in this one than the cube escapes, but this was more than made up for by the game’s length and the occasional really tricky one mixed in. I especially loved the music in this one, and the visuals were better than ever. Great work, I’m looking forward to whatever is next. Also, I can’t believe more youtubers aren’t playing these games. I would think MatPat especially would enjoy these, since they’re prime theory material.

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